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The 10 Largest Pumped-Storage Hydropower Plants in the World

By Scott Lewis

Pump01 — **1. Bath County Pumped Storage Station**, Virginia, USA, 3,003 MW capacity, completed 1985. The station features two reservoirs separated by 380 meters in elevation. Both reservoirs are created by earth and rock-fill embankment dams. The upper reservoir has a storage capacity of 35,599 acre-ft, and the lower reservoir’s capacity is 2,927 acre-ft. Three 28.5-ft-dia concrete-lined tunnels connect the two reservoirs and feed into the six turbines. Stone & Webster did the original site studies, while Harza Engineering did the detailed design work. Daniel Construction Co. was hired under a cost-plus contract that called for it to perform most of the work and manage the entire project for the owner, Virginia Electric and Power Co. (VEPCO). Construction started in 1977. Daniel’s workforce peaked at 3,350. The Arab oil embargo hit VEPCO hard, forcing it to renegotiate Daniel’s contract and take over project management as part of a reorganization. A joint venture of Clement Brothers Co. and Metric Constructors excavated, processed and placed 21 million cu yd of fill for the two embankment dams. Also, 1.2 million cu yd of concrete were placed in constructing the tunnels and powerhouse. The construction cost was $1.6 billion. Its original generating capacity was 2,100 MW, but Voith-Siemens upgraded the turbines between 2004 and 2009 to reach its present output. It is currently owned and managed by Dominion Energy Virginia (successor to VEPCO). The station stores energy for PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization covering 13 states and the District of Columbia.

*Photo Credit: Jeffrey Ocampo, Dominion Energy*

pump02 — **2. Huizhou Pumped Storage Power Station**, China, 2,448 MW capacity, completed 2011. The upper reservoir is created by two dams, of roller-compacted concrete, one of them 56 m tall, and 156 m long, and the second 14 m tall and 133 m long. The lower reservoir dam is 61 m tall and 420 m long. The power station is located near Huizhou in Guangdong Province. It features eight pump-generators supplied by Alstom Power.

pump03 — **3. Guangdong Pumped Storage Power Station**, China, 2,400 MW capacity, completed 2000. The upper reservoir is created by a 68-meter tall, 318-meter long concrete rock-fill embankment dam, and has a capacity of 19,000 acre-feet. The lower reservoir is created by a 43.5-meter tall, 153-meter long gravity dam of roller-compacted concrete, and is a similar capacity. The station was built in two stages, the first four turbines, supplied by Alstom-Siemens, went online in 1994, and the remaining four, supplied by Voith, in 2000. It is operated by the Guangdong Pumped Storage Joint Venture Co. According to the project completion report issued by the Asian Development Bank, which helped finance it, the project necessitated the resettlement of 1,252 poor farmers who lived in the lower reservoir basin. Whereas they had previously lacked electricity or tap water, their new homes have both, and a new school was built as well. Guangdong Province faced electricity shortages in the 1990’s, compounded by peaking during daytime. The large unmet daily demand and the inability to meet peak demand led to extensive load shedding, causing serious economic losses. This power station alleviated the severe peak power shortages. In addition, it enhances the overall utilization efficiency of the predominantly coal-fired thermal power plants that supply most of the power in the province.

pump04 — **4. Okutataragi Pumped Storage Power Station**, Japan, 1,932 MW capacity, completed 1974. Kurokawa Reservoir, the upper reservoir, has a capacity of 27,067-acre-feet. It was created by an embankment dam 98 m tall, and 325 m long. Tataragi Reservoir, the lower reservoir, has a capacity of 15,771 acre-ft. It sits behind a 64-m-tall, 278-m-long dam. It is owned and operated by the Kansai Electric Power Co., and located in Hyōgo Prefecture on Honshu island.

*Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons*

pump05 — **5. Ludington Pumped Storage Plant**, Michigan, USA, 1,872 MW capacity, 1973. In contrast to most pumped storage projects, which have two man-made reservoirs, this has only one, because Lake Michigan serves as the lower reservoir. The embankment dam (dike) creating the upper reservoir is 9.7 km long and 31 m tall, and the reservoir holds 82,859 acre-feet of water. Given that impervious bedrock is located over 240 m below the reservoir, the contractor lined the reservoir with layers of asphalt and clay to prevent seepage. The plant features six 312 MW turbine-generators. It is owned jointly by Consumers Energy and Detroit Energy, and is operated by Consumers Energy. It was designed to level the load of nearby nuclear power plants on the grid. The facility was the highest capacity pumped-storage plant in the world briefly, before being succeeded by Okutataragi in Japan (see previous slide). The original construction cost was $315 million. The plant is currently undergoing an $800 million upgrade. The pump-turbines were redesigned by Toshiba, to improve efficiency and pump cavitation performance, and increase turbine output and pump discharge. When completed in 2019, each turbine will have a capacity of 362 MW, for a total maximum output of 2,172 MW.

*Photo Courtesy of Consumers Energy*

pump06 — **6. Tianhuangping Pumped Storage Power Station**, China, 1,836 MW capacity, completed 2004. Each of the station’s two reservoirs hold 8 million cu m of water, and are separated by 580 m in elevation. 3.2-m dia pipes feed into the six 306 MW turbines. Located in Zhejiang Province, 175 km from Shanghai, the station helps stabilize the East China Power Grid. A consortium led by Kvaerner received the powerhouse equipment contract. Other partners included GE Hydro and Austria’s Elin Energiversorgung (VA Technologie). The construction cost was $1.08 billion.

*Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Common*

pump07 — **7. Grand’Maison Dam**, France, 1,800 MW capacity, completed 1985. The plant’s upper reservoir is Lac de Grand Maison, fed by the L’Eau d’Olle, a tributary of the Romanche River. Situated in the French Alps, the reservoir’s surface is at 1,698 m altitude, and holds 113,500 acre-ft of water. The embankment dam is 160 m tall and 550 m long, and holds 12 million cu m of fill. Tunnels carry water down to a powerhouse containing four 150 MW Pelton turbine-generators and eight 150 MW Francis pump-turbines. It is the highest capacity hydroelectric power station in France. The lower reservoir, Lac du Verney, is 973 m lower in elevation than the upper reservoir. The complex is owned by Électricité de France.

*Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons*

pump08 — **8. La Muela Pumped Storage Power Station**, Spain, 1,772 MW, completed 2013. Located 50 km from Valencia, this power plant was built in two stages. The first stage, completed in 1989, encompassed Cortes II, a conventional plant (246 MW), and the La Muela I pumped-storage plant (636 MW), which pumps water from the Júcar River to an upper reservoir at an elevation of 500 meters. An expansion added four Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation pump-turbines and an 840-meter long penstock for the second stage, and was completed in 2013. The expansion project’s cost was $1.6 billion. The facility is owned by Iberdrola. It is able to provide power to bridge energy gaps caused by the volatile output of Spain’s wind energy farms.

*Photo Courtesy of Iberdrola*

pump09 — **9. Dinorwig Power Station**, United Kingdom, 1,728 MW capacity, completed 1984. Llyn Peris is a lake that forms the lower reservoir. The upper reservoir is the Marchlyn Mawr reservoir, which was constructed by a consortium made up of Alfred McAlpine plc, Brand, and Zschokke. The six generator-motors are housed inside a cavern that is 51 m tall, 180 m long and 23 m wide, that involved the excavation of one million cubic meters of rock. The powerhouse was located underground, inside the mountain Elidir Fawr, in order to preserve the natural beauty of Snowdonia National Park. From the upper reservoir, a 10.5-meter dia tunnel runs for 1.7 km to a 10 m dia vertical shaft. From the bottom of the shaft, a 9.45 m dia tunnel leads to the power station, 670 meters away.

*Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons*

pump10 — **10. Raccoon Mountain Pumped-Storage Plant**, Tennessee, USA, 1,652 MW capacity, completed 1978. Pumped storage hydroelectricity projects were small scale and not widely known in the early 1960’s, when the Tennessee Valley Authority began considering a large project. The Kennedy Administration backed a feasibility study. Rep. Walter Rodgers, chair of the House Irrigation and Reclamation Subcommittee, a sponsor of the study, called the concept for the plant "a Rube Goldberg invention.” The TVA determined the project would be difficult to construct, but possible, and proceeded. Crews placed 10 million cu yd of fill to build an 1,800 m long, 70 m tall rockfill dam at the top of Raccoon Mountain, near Chattanooga. The reservoir contains 328,370 acre-ft of water. When power is needed, the plant’s staff pulls the reservoir’s plug, sending water racing through the 200-ft tall concrete intake structure, down a vertical shaft to four Allis-Chambers pump-turbines in an underground powerhouse. The workforce peaked at 1,600, and construction cost $310 million. The TVA was alerted by the German firm that designed the turbines that cracks had been found in rotors at other power plants about 2012. The TVA found cracks in rotors of all four turbines, and took the plant offline. All of the 24 rotor poles in each generator, weighing 7,000 lb each, and the cracked rotor rims, had to be rebuilt on a customized basis. The repairs cost $90 million, and the entire plant came back online in 2014.

*Photo Courtesy of TVA*

Pumped-storage hydroelectricity, a mature technology first developed in the 1890s, is playing an increasingly important role in the current era as wind and solar power advance. "The largest market driver of pumped storage is aggressive renewable-energy goals that are pushing regional power grids to the edge of instability," says Don Erpenbeck, global market sector leader for water power and dams at Stantec. "Developers, power utilities and grid operators are seeing an opportunity to incorporate pumped-storage solutions."

The strongest and most consistent market for pumped-storage hydropower is the refurbishment of the existing 140,000-MW global fleet of plants. Japan has over 27,000 MW, the U.S. has 23,000 MW and Europe has over 25,000 MW of operating (and aging) pumped-storage facilities. Repowering existing plants by installing newer turbines and generators, which produce more electricity with less water, has emerged as a major trend in the past year, according to Erpenbeck. "Companies who own a pumped-storage facility have been studying or have started to implement repowering projects with the goal of increasing the operational flexibility and output of an existing plant," he adds.

New pumped-storage projects are on the rise as well. "The largest growth of new pumped-storage installation will be in China," says Klaus Krueger, manager of product and plant safety and innovation at Voith Hydro Holding GmbH & Co. "China will award up to 29 new pumped-storage plants from now to 2022 and Voith Hydro has already received new orders. The flexibility of the pumped-hydro fleet will be used to avoid curtailment and compensate the intermittency of wind and solar."

"New pumped-storage projects in different parts of the world that currently have little or no pumped storage, like Israel, Australia, Canada, Chile, Argentina and parts of the Middle East, are growing, partly as a result of the increased development of intermittent renewables in these regions that need energy storage to firm up the power and stabilize the grid," says Erpenbeck. "And islanded power grids, like Australia, the U.K., Philippines, Japan and Indonesia, will also see growth driven by energy security needs."

One significant innovation in pumped storage is the introduction of adjustable-speed technology to provide faster response and flexibility in pumping mode. "This adjustable-speed technology is achieved through new types of motor-generator technology as well as the application of full frequency converters added to the back end of traditional-style plants," comments Erpenbeck. "Increased flexibility demand for fast balancing power reserves … will also result in combinations of existing pumped storage with new batteries installed sharing the same switchyard while being able to offer fast governor response mode (primary frequency control) during standstill conditions of pumped hydro," says Krueger.

The largest pumped-storage project currently being developed in the U.S. is the Big Chino Valley project in Arizona, which will have an installed capacity of 2,000 MW. It is being developed by Big Chino Valley Pumped Storage LLC, a subsidiary of ITC Holdings Corp. "ITC anticipates filing its license application with FERC in 2019," says Terry Harvill, president of ITC Grid Development. Construction is expected to commence in 2022 and be completed in 2025. "We're proposing an integrated regional energy solution to meet the energy challenges facing Arizona and other Southwest states. The region is experiencing rapid population growth, increasing energy demands and a changing generation portfolio."

ITC focuses only on transmission, and has no power-generation facilities and no affiliation with market participants. "ITC is generation-neutral as to the type and location of electric energy flowing through our systems," adds Harvill. "This project will provide access to Southwest market hubs, and based on our preliminary discussions with other utilities and potential customers of the project, we see strong interest among power companies in connecting to this project."

The Eagle Mountain Pumped Storage project, located on the site of an abandoned iron mine near the border of Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, is progressing. Its design calls for using two large abandoned mine pits as reservoirs, separated by 1,400 ft of elevation. It was granted a hydropower license by FERC in 2014. The developer, Eagle Crest Energy Co., has partnered with NextEra Energy, a large energy producer and the owner of several solar farms including Desert Sunlight—a 4,000-acre solar farm located nearby. The 1,300-MW project is expected to cost $2 billion to build.

India is expecting to push forward on a pumped-storage initiative to maximize the use of renewable energy at the lowest possible cost. Officials of the country's Central Electricity Authority expect to set up 10,000 MW of pumped-storage capacity in the coming years, an investment of $12 billion. Solar power projects will be set up near pumped-storage reservoirs, which will stabilize the grid while simultaneously maximizing the use of renewable energy.

The Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corp. is developing the largest pumped-storage project in India, with an installed capacity of 2,000 MW. The first phase will encompass a dam across the Sillahalla River to create the upper reservoir, with an interconnecting tunnel between the dam and the existing Avalanche-Emerald reservoir. The second phase will entail an underground powerhouse with four 500-MW turbines, an access tunnel and power transmission system. The $1.5-billion project will help to harness the full potential of wind power in the region, which otherwise would go untapped during peak wind season.

The 3,600-MW Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station, which is under construction in Hebei Province in China, is expected to be the world's largest pumped-storage plant when it is completed in 2021. It will feature 12 300-MW pump-turbine units. Two of the units are being supplied by Andritz. Gezhouba Group No.2 Engineering Co., a subsidiary of China Energy Engineering Corp., was awarded the contract for the civil construction and metal structure installation. The first generator is expected to be commissioned in 2019, the last in 2021. The construction cost will be $1.87 billion.

The Jixi Pumped Storage Power Station is another very large project under construction, in China's Anhui Province. Four contractors are carrying out the project: China Railway 14th Bureau Group Co., Sinohydro Bureau 5 Co., Sinohydro Bureau 12 Co. and China Gezhouba Group Co. The two dams that will form the reservoirs have been completed, and the first turbine is expected to begin operating in May 2019. All six turbine generators are expected to be operating by August 2020, giving it an installed capacity of 1,800 MW. Construction is expected to cost $1.2 billion.

Scott Lewis is Associate Editor of ENR

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The 10 Largest Pumped-Storage Hydropower Plants in the World

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